22 February 2011

I have already been here for over a month, which is so hard to believe! It has gone by so fast, I feel like I just got here last week. Last Friday we had no school because we had what they call the swimming carnival. The swimming carnival is a day where everyone from school goes to the local pool, dresses up in their house colors, and then all day it is a competition between all the houses through swim races, and what they call novelty events. Your house gets points for how well your swimmers do in their races, for how many people participate in the novelty events, and then at the end of the day one house wins the spirit award!

Here are some pictures from the swimming carnival:

The pool.

Jack, Candy, and I.

Penny and I after our first novelty event.

Mercedes and I before a novelty event.

The next day, on Saturday, Mercedes and I went with some friends from another school in town here, Kirwan State High School, to the Reef HQ. The Reef HQ is the aquarium in town, and then after that we spent the rest of the night at The Stand! Which is our main beach in town.

We stopped and got gelato and then stayed on the beach for a while!

Oh! And Kelvyn wants to make sure I don't forget to tell all of you about my story from yesterday, which he finds quite funny. haha  So yesterday I went to make my bed, before I left for school, and was standing on top of my bed to shake out my sheets. Why I choose to stand on my bed to do so, I'm not sure. But when I lifted my blanket to shake it out, I sliced my fingers on my fan. Which was on full speed. So after a lot of laughing, and then crying, and getting blood everywhere, Kelvyn got me all bandaged up. And just so you know, I did turn off my fan this morning before I went to make my bed. :)

This last week has been great, and this whole experience is going by so fast already! It's my birthday this weekend, and then next weekend we are heading up to Cairns with Pauline, Bill, and Gab. So we have a lot of exciting things going on in the upcoming weeks!

Here is the link to the movie I made so you can see a little bit of the swimming carnival and the rest of my weekend!

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1872899783321

11 February 2011

I should start by saying that I survived the cyclone! If you haven't heard much about it, Cyclone Yasi hit the coast of Queensland at about 11 PM on Wednesday night, February 2nd. To give you an idea of how big it was, they were comparing Cyclone Yasi to Hurricane Katrina. Saying Yasi was more powerful. It was known to be the worst cyclone to ever hit Australia.
Of course, for me, little Seattle girl, it was by far the scariest thing I have ever been through. It started raining hard early in the day on Wednesday, and then the winds started to pick up at about 9.00PM. We lost power at 9.30 that night and didn't get it back until about 9 this morning, February 8 So we went almost a week here with no power, cold showers and all that fun stuff! We played Sequence and Monopoly, and laid around complaining about how terrible it was having no air conditioning! But everything and everyone is okay, which is all that matters.

Here is some photos from around the house, once the cyclone was over:

Townsville is in better conditions than a lot of towns in North Queensland, but we were definitely affected by Yasi. Most of the power in town is finally back on, but some homes still have no power. Finding food around town, at the moment, is impossible. The days after the cyclone, the lines to the few open gas stations and few open fast food resteraunts were tremmendusly long. The Strand, the main street on the beach here in Townsville, is still closed due to the destruction. Trees are down all over the place, and the sand has been washed up on to the streets, but they are working to clean it up and are hoping to have it open by the weekend! Schools were closed starting last wednesday, and just started up again yesterday, Tuesday, February 8th. We were fortunate to only loose trees and parts of our fence. Many people in a town just north of us, Tully, came home from the evacuation centers to find their homes completely destroyed. There is a lot of rebuilding that is going to be happening in North Queensland over the next couple months, and a lot of it has already been started.
The cyclone has obviously been a big part of my last week in Australia, but I did get the opportunity to get out a couple days after the cyclone and drive around the town. Pauline, Bill, Gabriel and I went up to the top of Castle Hill, which is a hill here that looks over all of Townsville. It was still overcast when we went up that day because of the cyclone, but here are some pictures from the top!

I am hoping to make it up north soon to see how they have been affected up there, but I made a video so you all could see how Cyclone Yasi affected us here in Townsville.
This is the link to the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LimUhYx4sRo

Oh, and by the way, I would just like to say that I had kangaroo for dinner this week! How australian is that?! :)

01 February 2011

I finally have time for another blog post because of there being no school tomorrow. School has been canceled for tomorrow and Thursday so far, and might possibly be canceled on Friday also, due to Cyclone Yasi. Cyclone Yasi is expected to hit tomorrow night around 10.00PM, and is currently a Level 5 cyclone.
Here is a picture of the cyclone off the coast of north east Queensland:

 Don't worry though, everything will be okay! We have done our food shopping, cleaned up all the loose items around the house, and Kel has a generator for when we loose power. So everything is going to be okay:)

Other then the getting ready for the storm, we have done a lot in the last week! I got to celebrate Australia Day on the 26th of January. Kel, Bec, Alex, Pauline (Kel's mum), Bill (Pauline's husband), Tom and WIll (Kel's step brothers), Gabriel (Pauline and Bill's exchange student from Brazil), and I went to a creek for the day to have a barbie. After the barbie, we went back to Pauline and Bill's for a swim and dinner. 

These are some pictures from Australia day:

 

Alex (my host brother).

       

The Zook, one of Kel's cars.

I then started school the next day, the 27th. All the exchange students had an orientation that day, but started our classes the next day, on Friday. School is really different here. Every school here has uniforms. The uniforms I ordered still are not in yet, so I have been wearing a shirt too big for me with paint stains on it, that I am barrowing from the school councelor's son, and shorts that are too big for me also. But thats alright! No one knows me anyway right? :) But other than that, school has been good! 

On Friday night Bec and I went to a Croc's game! The Croc's are the Townsville professional basketball team. They were playing the Gold Coast which is the team from just south of us. The basketball game was exciting cause a trophy was on the line, and the Croc's won it back! 

On Saturday Pauline, Bill, and Will took Gabriel and I  to a beach in Townsville called Bushland Beach. The tide was really low so you could walk out really far on the beach. It was a beautiful day and from the beach you could see Magnetic Island!

These are some pictures from Bushland Beach:

Bill and their dog Reba.

Will and Reba.

The Beach with Magnetic Island in the back.

We were planning to go down to Airlie Beach for the weekend with Pauline and Bill, which is a beach a few hours south of here. But because of the storm, we won't be able to make it down there this week! 

Here is a link to a video from my last week in Australia!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixxLZxd-JFo